Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Saying Goodnight

Ah... back to the world of the living. The world of the normal. Where I only worked like 12 hours today (instead of 14 or 15). Where there is wi-fi everywhere I go. Ahhhh....

For the last eight weeks or so, life has been crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean C-H-R-A-Z-E-E (Can you hear it? Stretch the vowels out folks... we have been in the land of the insane). Between the normal chaos of the Christmas season (presents to buy, crafts to make, foods to cook, choir concerts, end of the semester projects, etc, etc, etc), followed by our quick trip to California, followed by a return to work (and when I say return to work, I mean get slammed into the ground work until you drop), and THEN a trip to ShowLow to celebrate Second Christmas.... our lives have been overfilled, overscheduled and overworked. Most of this (really and truly) most of it, has been positive and fun and good. But....

As a result we let go of a few things. We let go of having family dinners every night. We ate in front of the TV rather than sitting at the table and talking to each other about our days. We got in the habit of doing homework on the run, rather than sitting down and making sure the kids were giving it their full attention. When we were at home, we were each in our own space, accomplishing the things that we each needed to get accomplished, rather than enjoying each other's company and being in the same space. We were all getting through, enjoying the chaos, enjoying the fun times, but at the same time getting a little disconnected.

Today I decided I have had enough. It's time to get settled again. It's time to get back to who we are, to what we value, to the family that we should be.

I had to work late tonight (it's happening more and more and I've got to get a better handle on that as well, but one thing at at time..) but when I got home, I gave all of my attention to my family. I talked with the Mr. about his day. I made time to tuck each of the kids into bed. To listen to them in an uninterrupted way for five minutes. To love on them. To kiss them and to tell them that they are the most important thing in my life. I took the time to say goodnight. The right way. And it felt good.

We're back on track. Yeah.

Good night all... hope you all took the time to say goodnight to the ones you love.
C